Past Present Future
by ficdirectory
Summary: Reid cleans out Elle's desk after she leaves.  Written for Cadens Stella's Alphabet Fic request: I is for Idiosyncracies, featuring Reid.


In the end, it's Reid who cleans out Elle's desk after she goes rogue and quits. The reason for this is quite simple. To Reid, sifting through Elle's possessions is like an expedition, while to the rest of the team, it would simply be an exercise in heartache. Is he regretful? Of course. He still feels he should have done something more than he did when he and Elle spoke and she got drunk. However, he cannot change the past.

So, tonight, he stays late - later than Hotch and Gideon - and eases open the top drawer of Elle's desk. It has sat, untouched, for a ridiculous length of time. How will any of them move on - how will _he _move on - if no one will touch her things? If no one will start the process. He touches everything carefully, as he would crime scene evidence. In a way, that's exactly what this is. He hopes he will not find anything linking her to the man she killed. Then again, Elle has always had intelligence equal to her impulsivity. She will have covered her tracks.

He carefully removes the manila folders and stacks them neatly in a pile on her desk. Reid is fairly certain they are unfinished. Elle had a history of slipping him files in exchange for gourmet jellybeans or obscenely large double-chocolate cookies from Levain Bakery in New York. They are mammoth. More the consistency of a giant brownie than a cookie. Reid feels a tangible loss at the fact that he will no longer be able to enjoy Elle's bribes. It is a hole inside him that is only slightly eased by the sight of the box of Red Hots shoved in a distant corner, beneath some papers.

Reid takes the box and tucks it safely in the pocket of his sweater. Maybe, he'll eat them later. Maybe, he'll save them. He doesn't know yet.

There are ancient floppy disks and a mess of paperclips and pens. Reid meticulously organizes them and puts them in a coffee cup atop his own desk. A cup that is not strictly designated for Elle's chocolate coffee. Then, he returns, his shoes making soft sounds on the office carpeting. He finds things he does not know what to do with. A design for a tattoo. A phone number on a scrap of paper. A framed photograph of herself and Morgan in Jamaica. He sets this aside. Maybe Morgan will want it.

Reid pauses and tries to imagine any of his team doing this. In his mind's eye, Morgan is angry. Garcia is crying. JJ makes it a bigger mess than it was to start with, leaving stacks of folders teetering dangerously. Hotch is delegating, and Gideon? Gideon is astutely ignoring the entire mess. This is how Reid knows he is the best one for the job. He is methodical and matter-of-fact. He misses Elle, of course. Sort of. He doesn't miss what this turned her into, but he misses her spunk. Her fire. But he does not want it around if she is not in control of it…and, clearly, she hasn't been in control of it lately.

He tosses the floppy disks in the garbage because there is no computer in the office that will accept them anyway. He puts the random items in another pile. Then, he keeps digging. Reid feels like an archeologist on a dig, upturning all the facts about Elle's life that she kept hidden. The truth is, though, there is nothing salacious to find. He dials the number, stunned, to learn it belongs to nothing more innocuous than the local pizza place. He pockets the tattoo design. He remembers her coming to him about drawing one and then going to someone else, instead. Reid finds himself wondering who did the illustration and if Elle got inked, as they say.

It's impossible to know.

In the end, there are only the faintest hints that anything was amiss. A carton of cigarettes, hidden less stealthily than the Red Hots. A key that he knows only belongs to one office door: Garcia's. Reid's stomach turns when he considers Elle sneaking around the BAU, breaking into offices and getting privileged information. He doesn't think Elle ever knew how to hack, but then again, there's apparently, a lot about the woman that no one was privy to.

When the desk is empty and the name placard is blank - Elle's name in the garbage with the rest, because Reid honestly doesn't know what else to do with it - Reid pushes in the chair. He rights all the drawers. He ties a knot in the trash bag and takes it with him out into the night, where he stops at a nearby dumpster to dispose of it.

In his pocket are the Red Hots, the tattoo design, and Garcia's office key. The last is just for safekeeping until he sees Garcia tomorrow. No one else needs access to her office in the meantime. Reid is going to make sure that everything is returned to its rightful place.

Even if Elle is no longer in hers.

After all, a rightful place tends to lose some of its dignity when the person who possessed it tossed all of hers. He is angry and he takes deep breaths, as he waits for the train that will take him home. Instead, Reid tries to imagine someday in the future. Someone else sitting in Elle's desk at the BAU and filling its drawers with her own pieces of her life. Reid feels certain it will be a woman, in the way he is certain about books he's read and statistics he loves to pour over.

He steps on the train and takes an open seat, trying to imagine the BAU with this new face. With a new kind of energy and personality in it. Someone who will not leave as Elle has, but who will pour herself into the job. She will be fearless like Morgan and methodical like himself. She will be sensitive like Garcia and engaging like JJ. She will be serious like Gideon and stoic as Hotch. But she will come with her own unique skills that Reid cannot yet put his finger on.

When he gets home, Reid doesn't think about it. He gets rid of the candy in his pocket. He gets rid of the tattoo design. It will do nothing but hold him back and remind him of past failures. What he needs is to think about what's coming. What he needs is to imagine the future.

His hand closes around the key in his pocket and he smiles a little, feeling confident that soon, everything will be as it should.


End file.
